#i recall being very proud of myself for knowing what a NDA was. lord knows where my middle-school self learned that from. she did eventually

[the-trans-dragon]

Y'know it was REALLY goddamn evil and nefarious that the oil fields gave my mom (a single mom working 3 jobs to raise 2 kids) a single $5,000 check in exchange for her signing a nondisclosure to never complain about them.

Of course we fucking took the money. Even with her working 1 full-time job and 2 part-time jobs, she barely made over $1,000 a month. Of course she took the money. We though about moving but we still couldn't afford it. She was so frugal with it, though. It did give us a sliver of financial security for years.

But goddamn. $5,000 is table scraps to them, and they bought her silence with it because she couldn't refuse the chance to slightly lessen the weight of poverty on her family.

#sorenhoots #i remember i was like 11 or something. she didnt know if she should sign it. and its not like we had or knew any lawyers. she had ME read it #over and even i was like “this is a nondisclosure and it means you cant ever talk about anything they do even if they do something terrible” #i recall being very proud of myself for knowing what a NDA was. lord knows where my middle-school self learned that from. she did eventually #have a lawyer of some sort look over it and they said the same thing but.... $5000 #it wasnt an option for her. that was more money than wed ever had or saved. she had two kids who would need cars bc we lived so far in the #country. she knew i wanted to go to college. i dont think i ever saw her buy herself clothes before then either. it was money for emergencys #and necessities and birthday presents and road trips and... i often wondered about the person who offered us that. i wondered where they #lived and wondered how much their clothes costed and wondered if their kids got to have art or piano lessons. i wondered if their home was #over 80 degrees in the summer and under 60 in the winter and if they lived in a house that wasnt filled with dangerous spiders (we had nice #spiders too but we did also have Very Dangerous Spiders) and id picture him in his office in a button up and slacks and it would break my #heart that my mom couldnt have all of that. we just had a $5000 check and a vow to not complain. #she still feels earthquakes from it. less nowdays but still. and sometimee it still smells like a jar of hot petroleum jelly. and the attic #smell is worse than ever and the tap water smells like sulfur and wet mold #goddamn what the fuck? jesus christ. she should move.